Over the last year, several universities throughout the world shared their plans to store student diplomas and other certifications on the blockchain network. The argument behind this decision is based on the growing number of fraudulent diplomas for higher education circulating on the market. Blockchain-based storage of certifications drastically reduces fraud attempts, thus ensuring that employers, educational institutions and other entities can verify whether the documents are authentic.

Forgeries like this are reportedly becoming a trend in Japan, as numerous illegal educational language proficiency documents have been discovered. Educational Certifications. To put things better into perspective, in order to study in Japan, foreigners are required to learn the language, and submit a proficiency certificate. Only so, can they receive resident status from the Immigration Bureau. Generally, the certificates in question are issued by Japanese institutions situated around the world. Since learning Japanese is no easy deed, it makes sense that numerous students are choosing the illegal approach, rather than the genuine method.

The solution provided by Sony and Fujitsu leverages Sony’s blockchain tech, and Fujitsu’s online learning platform. The fraud verification solution is fairly easy to use. Upon completing the courses and receiving the certificate, international Japanese language institutions will enter the student’s data onto the blockchain platform. Then, national educational institutions can simply cross-check the information contained in the certification, with the data stored on the blockchain database.

In a press statement, Sony noted that: “Organizations will also consider an initiative to evaluate not only the study results of foreign workers and prospective exchange students, but also their study processes and attitudes toward learning, through a more multifaceted analysis of collected study logs and grade information. (…) Fujitsu will promote the utilization of blockchain throughout the educational field, and aims for a future society in which data associated with an individual’s learning can be utilized safely and securely beyond the framework of companies and educational institutions.”

So far, a wide variety of universities have chosen similar methods of storing diplomas, in countries like Australia, Singapore, Malta, Bahrain and more. For instance, a week ago, the Government of Malta decided to implement a policy change, through which all educational certifications will need to be stored on blockchain databases. Based on everything that has been outlined so far, the education market represents one of the first implementations of blockchain-based identification (ID) solutions. It is quite likely that in the future, loads of data related to our identities will be stored, managed and verified via the blockchain. It is too early to tell whether this is a positive or negative advancement, yet all privacy concerns remain valid.